In my view, the Republican Party lost its moral compass when it allowed its base and local city and county committees to be hijacked by Christofascists, many of who are outright racists. As I have said before, these were self-inflicted wounds since one must be voted onto city and county committees. Sitting committee members opened the doors for the moral equivalent of the Visigoths versus the Roman Empire. The irony, of course is that it was supposed Christians that undid the GOP's moral compass. Yet from following "family values" groups for over two decades, the take away is that no one lies more often - except perhaps Der Trumpenführer and his sycophants - and hates other more than these allegedly "Christian" organizations and the fundamentalist and evangelical Christians who continue to bankroll they and fall for their ugly propaganda. All of this ugliness has come to a pinnacle with the evangelical Christians having put Trump in the White House. Two divergent pieces look at the tainted nature of the GOP. One is in the New Republic and the other is a piece by Erick Erickson (a man I rarely agree with on anything) in the Washington Post. First highlights from New Republic:

All politicians,
even the most polished, say things they wish they hadn’t. In the jargon of
Washington, the process of resolving these self-inflicted crises is usually
called the walk back. Compelled to provide more context, politicians
will—usually through their press aides—admit that they “misspoke” or “regret
their remarks.”

Donald
Trump forgoes the walk back in favor of irresponsibly disclaiming the
seriousness and implications of his statements.

Just
about any Trump utterance, apparently, can be written off as yet more locker
room talk—including his private request to FBI Director Jim Comey to abandon
the federal investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. “I
hope you can let this go,” the president said, according to a Comey memo revealed by The
New York Times on Tuesday. After 12 hours of conspicuous silence, White
House aides and several Republicans on Capitol Hill, chalked up the whole thing
to a misunderstanding.

Trump’s
complete absence of integrity is rubbing off on the party at large. Of
Wednesday’s manynewsbombshells, the most
contested story was about a year-old conversation among House Republican
leaders in which Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he believed Russian
President Vladimir Putin was funneling money to then-candidate Donald Trump.
Speaker Paul Ryan then swore the group to secrecy.

The
basic nature of the pro-Trump subversion effort was known to GOP leaders before
the parties’ conventions last year: The above conversation took place on June
15. Several weeks after the GOP officially nominated Trump in mid-July, in a
secure setting with Obama administration officials and other members who
receive classified briefings, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed to politicize any effort on the part
of the government to reveal that Russian intelligence was intervening in the
election to help Trump. “According to several officials,” the Postreported, “McConnell
raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the
administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to
challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.”

Despite Ryan’s
clear awareness of the truth, we can infer that he sided with McConnell,
tacitly or otherwise, because the Obama administration backed down in the face
of McConnell’s threat. An official government assessment that Russia was
helping Trump in the election didn’t reach the public until after the election,
as Trump was transitioning to the presidency.

Unless this
story has a second act, McCarthy and Ryan will stick to the explanation that
their Putin-paying-Trump speculation was meant to be a joke. But even if that
part of the conversation had never happened, the rest of it, and the later
briefing with Obama officials, tell a perfectly rounded story of congressional
Republicans’ complicity in Russian sabotage of the Clinton campaign. There is
no way to walk this one back—and it wasn’t locker room talk.

In his op-ed in the Washington Post, Erickson predicts that Republicans are headed towards a day of reckoning for their continued support of Trump. He likewise sees the Christofascists taking a major hit. Here are highlights:

[T]hroughout 2016
I maintained my opposition to Trump for three reasons, two of which are
increasingly, worryingly relevant.

First, I did not think Trump could beat Hillary Clinton. When it came to
the popular vote, of course, he did not, but thanks toroughly 70,000people in Wisconsin, Michigan and
Pennsylvania, he won the presidency.

Second, I thought
that Trump, even if he won, would be deeply destructive to the national fabric
and to the conservative ideas I support.

Third, I strongly believed that Trump lacks moral character and that he
sets a bad example both for my children and for people of faith.

Unfortunately,
while I was wrong about my first concern, I am increasingly worried about the
latter two. Trump’s evangelical Christian supporters often told me that whether
we liked Trump or not, we needed him to save the Supreme Court. My response
remains that four years of Clinton appointing judges, while awful, would be
nothing compared with a generational wipeout of the GOP. Watergate may have
turned Charles Colson from hatchet man to pastor, but the defense of President
Trump is turning a lot of pastors into hatchet men. Few people come away from
Trump’s orbit without compromising their characters.

A Republican
reckoning is on the horizon. Voters are increasingly dissatisfied with a
Republican Party unable to govern. And congressional Republicans increasingly
find themselves in an impossible position: If they support the president, many
Americans will believe they are neglecting their duty to hold him accountable.
But if they do their duty, Trump’s core supporters will attack them as
betrayers — and then run primary candidates against them.

Through it all, voter dissatisfaction has been growing. Trump’s core might
stand with him, as he claimed, even if he killed someone in the middle of the
street. But would those 70,000 voters who put him in the White House? As the
president acts more irrationally and his Twitter rantings become more unhinged,
will he draw more people to himself and his party than he will repel? I suspect
not.

The president exudes incompetence and instability. . . . Republicans excuse this
behavior as Trump being Trump, but that will only embolden voters who seek
greater accountability to choose further change over stability. The sad reality
is that the greatest defense of the president available at this point is one
his team could never give on the record: He is an idiot who does not know any
better.

Trump is
increasingly disliked, and the Republicans who enable him are increasingly
distrusted.

With a horde of vocal Trump supporters cheering on every inane statement,
delusion, lie and bad act, the majority of the American people can be forgiven
for thinking the GOP as a whole has lost its mind. The Republicans may soon
lose a generation of voters through a combination of the sheer incompetence of
Trump and a party rank and file with no ability to control its leader.

Unless
Republican leaders stage an intervention, I expect them to experience a
deserved electoral blood bath in November 2018.

The Republican Party has again demonstrated that it is the party of Christian extremists, hate and anti-LGBT bigotry by defeating a measure that would have barred anti-LGBT employment discrimination by federal contractors. In the world of the GOP it remains perfectly fine to fire gays solely on the basis of the sexual orientation. It's an issue that upsets me immensely since I was fired for being gay over a decade ago. The financial consequences were ruinous for me and my family and it has taken years to recover from it. Of course the House Republicans acted no differently than what we see in the Virginia General Assembly literally every year where pro-LGBT bills are killed and anti-LGBT employment discrimination remains legal in Virginia. The situation is ironic since a Republican acquaintance has been trying to convince me to come to a fundraiser for a GOP candidate running for the Lt. Governor nomination that he and his wife are hosting. He wants me simply to talk with the candidate, no monetary contribution required whatsoever. With votes like this in the House, the question is why bother. When push comes to shove, it's a strong bet that Republicans will always defer to the "family values" hate groups that set the GOP's social agenda: anti-LGBT animus, racism, and bigotry. Politico looks at the events in the House. Here are excerpts:

The House
erupted in chaos Thursday morning with Democrats crying foul after Republicans
hastily persuaded a few of their own to switch their votes and narrowly block
an amendment intended to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people
from discrimination.

It was an unruly
scene on the floor with Democrats chanting, "Shame!" after GOP
leaders barely muscled up the votes to reject, 212-213, an amendment by Rep.
Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) that would have effectively barred federal
contractors from getting government work if they discriminate against the LGBT
community.

At one point, a
monitor in the House gallery showed there were 217 votes supporting the
legislation, eliciting cheers of joy from Democrats who thought the measure
might actually pass. But over the course of about 10 minutes, those votes
suddenly dropped one by one to 212 — and the amendment failed.

A number of
lawmakers from western states, who originally voted yes, changed their votes.
According to a list tweeted out an hour after the vote by House Minority Whip
Steny Hoyer’s (D-Md.) office, they included: California Reps. Darrell Issa,
David Valadao, Jeff Denham, Mimi Walters, and Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, Rep.
David Yong of Iowa and Rep. Bruce Poliquin of Maine. Their offices have not yet
responded to a request for comment.

Maloney, the
amendment's author, was furious with Republicans for how they handled the floor
fight over his offering. He singled out Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy
(R-Calif.) in particular for criticism, saying the No. 2 House Republican
personally lobbied GOP members to change their votes when it looked like
Maloney's proposal would pass.

"The leader
[McCarthy] went around and twisted their arms, and they voted for
discrimination," Maloney said. When Maloney complained directly to
McCarthy, he said the majority leader told him "to get back on your own
side."

"The
members who switched are going to hold a very special place in American history
as the people who didn't have the guts to stand up and support the will of the
House," Maloney said off the chamber floor after the vote. "They
literally snatched discrimination out of the jaws of equality."

The
acrimony undermined a success for Ryan earlier that day regarding his
commitment to regular order. Just moments before the LGBT vote, he’d shepherded
the first House vote to bar the Confederate flag from
flying in mass graves at federal cemeteries.

When
the votes began shifting out of the 'aye' column on Maloney's measure, booing
erupted in the chamber. Almost every Democrat was on his or her feet shouting
and eventually they broke out in a chant, pointing their fingers at the other
side of the chamber where the Republicans sit: “Shame! Shame! Shame!”

As the amendment
was being voted down, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen appeared to shake her head in
disappointment. The Florida Republican has a transgender son and is one of the
few Republicans who has been outspoken in advocating for the LGBT community.
After the chair
closed the vote, Democrats continued shouting in anger.

“I’ve
been the majority leader. I’ve been the whip,” Hoyer said on the floor after
the vote as he blamed GOP leadership for pushing lawmakers to switch their
votes. But he again hit the seven Republicans who changed their positions.
“They will have themselves to look at tonight in the mirror and explain to
themselves whether their first vote was a principled one.”

Why would I want to attend an event for anyone in a political party that engages in such bigotry? Nothing I could say could outweigh the foul dictates coming down from The Family Foundation, Virginia's leading hate group.

Forty plus years ago, if we had witnessed the events of the last month coming from the White House, regardless of party affiliation, Congressional Republicans would have been likely pushing for impeachment. Fast forward to the present and we witness entirely different behavior. What happened to Republicans? Several things, not the least of which is that today party is more important than country to all but a few Republicans in Congress. But I credit much of the shift to the fact that the base of the GOP today is controlled by religious extremists and white supremacists who place their ideology to all else - as a former Republican, I saw the swamp fever when the onset began. Compounding this cancer in the party base is the rise of Fox News and other conservative "news" outlets that are about as truthful as Pravda during the darkest days of the Soviet Union. To watch or listen to these outlets is to enter into an alternate universe that is free from facts and objective reality. All of this has enforced a need to conform and protect the Republican Party, the nation be damned. A column in the New York Times looks at the phenomenon which in part is why we have a totally unfit occupant in the White House. Here are excerpts:

[Paul] Ryan is speaker of the House of Representatives, a legislative body
with the power to issue subpoenas, compel testimony and, yes, impeach the
president. In fact, under the Constitution, Ryan and his congressional colleagues
are effectively the only check on a rogue chief executive.

It has become painfully
clear, however, that Republicans have no intention of exercising any real
oversight over a president who is obviously emotionally unstable, seems to have
cognitive issues and is doing a very good imitation of being an agent of a
hostile foreign power.

They may make a few gestures toward accountability in the face of bad
poll numbers, but there is not a hint that any important figures in the party
care enough about the Constitution or the national interest to take a stand.

And the
big question we should be asking is how that happened. At this point we know
who and what Trump is, and have a pretty good idea of what he has been doing.
If we had two patriotic parties in the country, impeachment proceedings would
already be underway. But we don’t. What’s the matter with Republicans?

First, Republicans are professional politicians. Yes, so are most
Democrats. But the parties are not
the same. The Democratic
Party is a coalition of interest groups, with some shared views but also a lot
of conflicts, and politicians get ahead through their success in striking
compromises and finding acceptable solutions.

The
G.O.P., by contrast, is one branch of a monolithic structure, movement
conservatism, with a rigid ideology — tax cuts for the rich above all else.
Other branches of the structure include a captive media that parrots the party
line every step of the way.

And this monolithic structure — lavishly supported by a small number
of very, very wealthy families — rewards, indeed insists on, absolute fealty.
Furthermore, the structure has been in place for a long time: It has been 36
years since Reagan was elected, 22 years since the Gingrich takeover of
Congress. What this means is that nearly all Republicans in today’s Congress
are apparatchiks, political creatures with no higher principle beyond party
loyalty.

The fact that the G.O.P. is
a party of apparatchiks was one crucial factor in last year’s election. . . . .
Republicans, however, went all in behind Trump, knowing full well that he was
totally unqualified, strongly suspecting that he was corrupt and even
speculating that he might be in Russian pay, simply because there was an
“R” after his name on the ballot.

And even now, with the Trump/Flynn/Comey story getting worse by the
hour, there has been no significant breaking of ranks. If you’re waiting to
find the modern version of Howard Baker . . . . Men like that left the G.O.P. a
long time ago.

Republicans won’t turn on Trump unless he has become such a political
liability that he must be dumped. And
even if Trump goes, one way or another, the threat to the Republic will be far
from over.

In a perverse way, we should count ourselves lucky
that Trump is as terrible as he is. . . . . given the character of the
Republican Party, we’d be well on the way to autocracy if the man in the White
House had even slightly more self-control. Trump may have done himself in; but
it can still happen here.

As I have noted many times, given what the GOP has become, I am ashamed I ever had anything to do with it. It is morally bankrupt and a threat to constitutional government.

Just as the younger generations are fleeing organized Christianity, so too are they leaving the Republican Party in large numbers. That's the conclusion of a new study by the Pew Research Center. One driving force behind this trend is Der Trumpenführer himself who remains exceedingly unpopular. While not specifically addressed, the GOP's self-prostitution to fundamentalist/evangelical Christians - a group not popular with the under 30 generation - could well be another significant motivating factor. A piece in Salon looks at the study findings:

It’s bleak out there for Democrats and progressives,
yet the future of the GOP may be more precarious than it appears.

According to a new analysis from the Pew Research Center, 23 percent of
Republican voters ages 18-29 have switched parties since 2015, against just 9
percent of Democratic voters in the same age range. As many as half of
Republicans 30 and under have abandoned the party at one point or another
during that time.

Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEightfinds
that Trump’s approval rating has sunk to 39.7 percent, its lowest since he
assumed office—and that figure doesn’t account for the latest Comey memo
revelations. The danger for Republicans is real, writes the Washington Post’s
Philip Bump:

Studies have shown that partisan identity is
formed early on, with partisanship tending to correlate to the popularity of
the president in office. As FiveThirtyEight noted in 2014, the most fervent
Republican voters are those who were 18 at the outset of the Eisenhower and
Reagan presidencies; the most Democratic were those who turned 18 as George W.
Bush was mired in the Iraq War.

Whether the Democrats are capable of harnessing that unrest
is another question entirely.

Here are some of the specific findings:

Those who switched parties were less politically
engaged than people who stayed with their parties. And among Republicans and
Republican-leaning independents, young people were far more likely than older
adults to leave the GOP.

Only about half (53%) of those under 30 who initially
identified as Republicans or leaned Republican consistently remained with the
party over four subsequent surveys. Among older Republicans, 80% or more
consistently identified as Republicans or leaned Republican.

Those who left the Republican Party, by contrast,
expressed sharply negative views of Trump: 84% disapproved (57% strongly).

Democrats who stayed with their party – or left and returned –
overwhelmingly disapproved of Trump’s job performance.

One can only hope that the defections by younger voters accelerate while the aging GOP literally dies off.

One thing that baffled me during the 2016 presidential campaign was how decent, moral individuals could support Donald Trump, a narcissistic pathological liar, sleazy businessman, and serial sexual predator. True, Hillary Clinton left much to be desired in the minds of some, but one would think that the tape of Trump boasting about molesting women and grabbing them in their genitals seemingly should have outweighed reservations with Clinton. I like to think that Trump's calls to racism and bigotry were not the determinative factor with Trump voters who in other ways seem decent. Now, with a special prosecutor in place and literally daily breaking news revealing yet more Trump transgressions and efforts to obstruct justice, isn't it time to walk away form Trump and regain integrity and arguably patriotism as well? A column by a 30 year Republican political consultant in the Washington Post addressed to White House staff and even Cabinet members would seem to apply to Trump voters as well. Here are column excerpts:

I’ve been a
Republican political consultant for almost 30 years, and I’ve dispensed a lot
of private advice. But now it’s time for me to reach out publicly to my fellow
Republicans working in the Trump administration.

We really need
to talk.

Whether you’re a
20-something fresh off the campaign trail, or a seasoned Washington
insider serving in the Cabinet, by now you’re painfully aware that you’re
not making America great again; you’re barely making it to the end of the daily
news cycle before your verbally incontinent boss, the putative leader of the
free world, once again steers the proverbial car into a ditch. On
every front, you’re faced with legal, political and moral hazards. The
president’s job, and yours, is a lot harder than it looked, and you know the
problem originates in the Oval Office.

I
know: Many of you serving in Cabinet, sub-Cabinet and White House roles joined
Team Trump in good faith, believing you could help steady the ship, smooth the
rough edges and, just maybe, put some conservative policy wins up on the board.
You could see that President Trump’s undisciplined style was risky, but you
hoped the big show playing over at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. would provide you
with cover to work steadily and enthusiastically on the administration’s
legislative priorities. Some of you even bought into the ‘Merica First new
nationalism. Many of you quietly assured friends in the Washington ecosystem
that Trump would settle into his job . . . .

Sure,
you knew you’d have to feed Trump’s ego and let him take a victory lap after
every success, but you also thought you might claim a smidgen of credit for a
popular infrastructure bill, a big tax cut, repeal of Obamacare or a
host of other “easy” lifts. Because we’re all ambitious, right? It’s okay to
admit it. . . . . Instead, your president botched Trumpcare 1.0 and
contributed little as Speaker Paul Ryan managed to ram public-relations
nightmare, Trumpcare 2.0, through the House at the cost of much political
blood and treasure. Instead, Trump’s fumbles have left many members of
Congress ducking town hall meetings like
they’re in the witness protection program. The tax bill and the rest of Trump’s
agenda are deader and more pungent than six-day-old fish.

Now,
you see the daily train wreck; you see a White House in turmoil and a
president drawing an ever-tighter circle of family and corporate vassals around
himself. You worry that the scandals and legal troubles, which have been
rumbling on the horizon like a summer thunderstorm, are drawing nearer.
You should worry. . . . Soon (and by soon, I mean now) you’ll have to
make a choice. You’ll have to decide whether I’m here to help has
morphed into I’m helping this president dismantle the republic.
In D.C., principle is as rare as hen’s teeth, but, GOP friends, I’m here to
help you.

Sticking with
Trump to the bitter end and pretending the unfolding chaos is just “fake news”
won’t save your reputation as the walls close in. It won’t ease the judgment of
history.It won’t do anything to polish up your future Wikipedia entry.

Cutting
ties with a man who is destructive to our values, profoundly divisive,
contemptuous of the rule of law and incontrovertibly unfit to serve in the
highest office in the land just might. Do it now.

With the survival of Der Trumpenführer reign looking increasingly questionable, the new question that is gaining attention is that of what did Mike Pence know and when did he know it. Stated another way, could Pence be looking at impeachment or criminal charges too? It looks increasingly likely that Pence lied - a common trait with evangelical/fundamentalist Christians something which Pence claims to be - when he said he knew nothing about Mike Flynn being the subject of an FBI investigations. That question in turn raises the question of what else did Pence know about? The many calls to Russia? Flynn's payments from Russia and Turkey? The list gets longer and longer and one can only assume one of two things: (i) Pence is as biggest liar, or (ii) Pence is grossly incompetent if he did not know about some of the issues under investigation. A piece at CNN looks at the growing difficulties facing Pence. Here are excerpts:

Vice President Mike Pence is
standing by a March statement that he first learned of now-fired national
security adviser Michael Flynn's ties to Turkey from media reports, despite
renewed scrutiny and revelations President Donald Trump's transition team was
made aware far earlier.

"The vice president stands by
his comments in March upon first hearing the news regarding General Flynn's
ties to Turkey and fully supports the President's decision to ask for General
Flynn's resignation," said an aide to Pence, who declined to be named.But questions about what Pence knew
and when are swirling thanks to new media reports about what Flynn revealed to
Trump's transition team, which Pence oversaw.

Flynn informed the Trump transition
team more than two weeks before the inauguration that he was under federal
investigation for his work as a lobbyist advocating for Turkish government
interests, The New York Times reported
Wednesday. But Pence didn't know, according to a senior
administration official close to Pence.Despite
reportedly informing the transition's chief lawyer Donald McGahn, now White
House counsel, of the investigation's existence, Flynn still walked into the
West Wing on January 20 as the President's top adviser on national security
issues.

The question of what Pence knew and
when first arose months earlier after reports surfaced that Flynn discussed
sanctions with Russia's ambassador to Washington despite Pence's public claim to the contrary.
It's also one that was posed after Pence stood before news cameras and claimed
that Trump had fired FBI director James Comey because of a memo written by the
deputy attorney general -- only for Trump to later reveal he planned to fire
Comey regardless.

A senior administration official
rebuffed CNN's question about whether or not Pence knew of the investigation
into Flynn during the transition with a simple, "No."But Pence should have known. . . . .
Pence had also received a letter in November from the top Democrat on the House
Oversight Committee Rep. Elijah Cummings describing Flynn's foreign work.

In a November 18 letter to Pence
"to raise questions about the apparent conflicts of interest of the Vice
Chairman of the Presidential Transition Team, retired Lt. Gen. Michael
Flynn," Cummings described Flynn's lobbying work and public advocacy aimed
at benefiting the Turkish government as well as Flynn's RT-funded speech in
Moscow in December 2015.

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Again and again Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer, has denied that he has ties to Russia and/or that his campaign - perhaps even himself- colluded with Vladimir Putin/Russian intelligence agencies to flip the 2016 presidential election to Trump. These lies denials have been made in tweets, in an interview with Lester Holt, and through his surrogates and henchmen. Yet, as past posts have laid out, much of Trump's real estate empire has depended on Russian money to survive. This influx of Russian money played two roles: (i) it kept Trump's projects afloat, and (ii) it provided a convenient means to launder Russian money derived from dirty/questionable sources. Now, a piece in Fortune underscores the dishonesty of Trump's disavowals of connections with Russia. Time magazine has made it's own statement via the cover shown above. Here are article highlights:

Donald
Trump said in a recent interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, "I have had
dealings over the years where I sold a house to a very wealthy Russian many
years ago. I had the Miss Universe pageant — which I owned for quite a while —
I had it in Moscow a long time ago. But other than that, I have nothing to do
with Russia."

The reality, however, is that Trump couldn’t be more wrong.
The President has deep Russian connections that far exceed what he admitted to
Holt.

In
a 2007 deposition that Trump gave as part of his unsuccessful defamation
lawsuit against reporter Timothy O’Brien, he describes efforts to launch real
estate ventures in Russia through Bayrock Associates, a shady Russian-connected
outfit. Bayrock had partnered with Trump on at least four major but failed
American projects: the Fort Lauderdale Trump Tower, the Trump Ocean Club in
Fort Lauderdale, the SoHo condominium-hotel in New York, and a resort in
Phoenix.

Bayrock
had its office on the 24th floor of Trump Tower,
and its 2007 glossy brochure featured a photo of Trump and Tevfik Arif, a
principal Bayrock partner, who served for 17 years in the Soviet government
before emigrating to the United States. It called the Trump Organization a
“strategic partner,” and listed Trump as their primary reference.

Felix Sater, the Russian-born managing director and majority
shareholder in Bayrock, was convicted of assault in 1991. Then, in 1998,
federal prosecutors convicted Sater of fraud, for running a $40 million penny
stock fraud in collaboration with the New York and Russian Mafia. In return for
a guilty plea, Sater reportedly agreed to work as a government informant.

The
plaintiffs in a 2015 racketeering case against Bayrock, Sater, and Arif, among
others, alleged in the civil lawsuit that: “for most of its existence it
[Bayrock] was substantially and covertly mob-owned and operated,” engaging “in
a pattern of continuous, related crimes, including mail, wire, and bank fraud;
tax evasion; money laundering; conspiracy; bribery; extortion; and
embezzlement.” Although the lawsuit does not allege complicity by Trump, it
claims that Bayrock exploited its joint ventures with Trump as a conduit for
laundering money and evading taxes.

In
September 2008, Donald Trump Jr. gave the following statement to the “Bridging
U.S. and Emerging Markets Real Estate” conference in Manhattan: “[I]n terms of
high-end product influx into the United States, Russians make up a pretty
disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets; say in Dubai, and
certainly with our project in SoHo and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of
money pouring in from Russia.” Trump’s many deals with Bayrock unravels Donald
Jr’s comments.

Trump’s
2013 sojourn in Russia for the Miss Universe pageant was far less innocent that
he would have us believe. According to the Washington Post,
the deal to bring the pageant to Russia was “financed in part by the
development company of a Russian billionaire Aras Agalarov.… a Putin ally who
is sometimes called the ‘Trump of Russia’ because of his tendency to put his
own name on his buildings.”

While in Moscow, Trump met with Russian oligarchs who were
closely aligned with President Vladimir Putin, including Herman Gref, the chief
executive officer of the state-controlled Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank.

The
Bayrock Group’s Felix Sater emerges again during the Trump campaign and
presidency. Sater contributed the maximum $5,400 to Donald Trump’s campaign.
Then on February 19, 2017, the New York Times reported
that “A week before Trump fired Michael Flynn resigned as national security
advisor, a sealed proposal was hand-delivered to his office, outlining a way
for President Trump to lift sanctions against Russia.”

The Times said that three men were
responsible for developing and delivering the plan: Andrew Cohen, Trump’s
personal lawyer, and Andrii V. Artemenko, a pro-Russian member of the Ukrainian
parliament.

The third man was none other than Trump’s former business
partner and convicted fraudster, Felix Sater. How and why Sater became involved
with a key member of the Trump administration in the most sensitive of
diplomatic transactions between the United States and Russia remains one of the
many mysteries to be resolved by congressional and FBI investigators.

If Trump's lips are moving, the safest assumption is that he is lying. The Time article can be found here.

According to a new piece in Politico, the rats are starting to flee the hopefully sinking ship that is the Trump/Pence regime. My one fear is that Pence will not be sufficiently implicated to also be removed from office. That said, the fact that some Republicans now see Trump as toxic to their political future is a positive. Of course, they should have known he was unfit for office from the beginning of his campaign and that no one would be able to control his worst character/psychological flaws. Jeff Greenfield summed it up well:

What
last week’s Oval Office love fest with the Russians demonstrated was that the
adults are not, in fact, in charge: a 70-year-old man-baby named Donald Trump
is. There are just too many ways in which the president—any president, but
especially this one—is beyond the restraints of those who serve him..

No one should be surprised at Trump's behavior. His entire life and career has demonstrated his moral bankruptcy and self-absorption. Now the chickens are coming home to roost and those who were power hungry and willing to betray the nation's interest by supporting Trump are worried that their betrayal may have much deserved consequences. Here are article highlights:

House
Republicans facing tough reelection bids are running for cover from Donald
Trump — an early sign that they believe the president’s deepening scandals
could cost them their seats and even put the House in play.

More than 10
centrist Republicans over the past 48 hours have criticized Trump for
reportedly sharing classified information with Russian officials or allegedly
trying to quash an FBI investigation. Many joined Democrats in calling for a
special prosecutor to take the reins of the Justice Department investigation
into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow. (The DOJ named a
special counsel on Wednesday.) Others want a select congressional committee to
be appointed.

One
swing-district lawmaker, Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, raised the possibility
of impeaching Trump if it turns out to be true that he leaned on FBI Director
James Comey to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael
Flynn. But in case it wasn’t clear how Curbelo felt about the matter, his
office called reporters to make sure they emphasized Curbelo was the first
Republican lawmaker to utter the “I-word.”The
break from Trump among centrist Republicans is especially notable because some
of them had stuck by the president through the brutal fight over Obamacare
repeal legislation two weeks ago, backing an unpopular bill despite great
political risk at home.Case in point:
Rep. Steve Knight of California, a top target for Democrats in 2018. Hillary
Clinton carried his district by nearly 7 points, and Cook Political Report
moved his reelection rating from “lean Republican” to “toss-up” after he voted
for the health care bill.

But on Tuesday,
after reports that Trump shared classified intelligence with Russia, Knight
backed a special prosecutor to take over the ongoing FBI investigation, arguing
that “there is so much conflicting information from many sources.”

[T]he most
endangered GOP incumbents believe that loyalty to the White House could cost
them their jobs.

“Any member of
Congress who represents a marginal or swing district better develop their own
brand very quickly,” said Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), who leads the moderate
Tuesday Group. “It wouldn’t be too hard to figure out what the opposition’s
attacks on them will be: They’re going to call everybody a rubber stamp” for
Trump.

While
polls suggest that Republican voters give Trump the benefit of the doubt when
it comes to the Russia investigation, the issue has energized the Democratic
base. That’s why moderates from districts with large Democratic or independent
populations are most exposed as the scandals unfold.

Frankly, I hope these spineless Republicans go down with the Trump ship.

The vast majority of Congressional Republicans willingly sold their souls to Donald Trump in their quest to put their party over the best interests of America. Seemingly, positioning themselves to give a trillion dollar tax cut to the wealthy outweighed all else. The result was that they backed a morally bankrupt, narcissistic liar and serial sexual predator despite reservations about Trump's possible allegiance to Vladimir Putin. The best interests and welfare of the majority of Americans simply did not matter. Now, a tape of a conversation between House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Speaker Paul Ryan has come to light in which McCarthy states that he believes that Trump was on Putin's payroll. After initially lying and claiming the conversation never happened, Ryan and McCarthy are trying to say it was all a joke. Sadly, what they have foisted on America is no joke and the nation and the world are now threatened by the sociopath in the White House. The Washington Post looks at Ryan - in my view one of the most despicable and amoral men in Washington - being caught trying to lie about this and how he puts party above country. Here are excerpts:

A month before Donald Trump clinched
the Republican nomination, one of his closest allies in Congress — House
Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy — made a politically explosive assertion in a
private conversation on Capitol Hill with his fellow GOP leaders: that Trump
could be the beneficiary of payments from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy
(R-Calif.) said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016, exchange,
which was listened to and verified by The Washington Post. Rep. Dana
Rohrabacher is a Californian Republican known in Congress as a fervent defender
of Putin and Russia.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) immediately interjected, stopping the
conversation from further exploring McCarthy’s assertion, and swore the
Republicans present to secrecy.

Before the
conversation, McCarthy and Ryan had emerged from separate talks at the U.S.
Capitol with Ukrainian Prime Minister Vladi­mir Groysman, who had described a
Kremlin tactic of financing populist politicians to undercut Eastern European
democratic institutions.

News had just broken
the day before in The Washington Postthat Russian government hackers
had penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee,
prompting McCarthy to shift the conversation from Russian meddling in Europe to
events closer to home.

Some of the lawmakers laughed at McCarthy’s comment. Then McCarthy quickly
added: “Swear to God.”

Ryan instructed his Republican lieutenants to keep the conversation
private, saying: “No leaks. . . . This is how we know we’re a real family
here.” The remarks remained secret for nearly a year.

The
conversation provides a glimpse at the internal views of GOP leaders who now
find themselves under mounting pressure over the conduct of President Trump.
The exchange shows that the Republican leadership in the House privately
discussed Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election and Trump’s relationship to
Putin, but wanted to keep their concerns secret. It is difficult to tell from
the recording the extent to which the remarks were meant to be taken literally.

Evan McMullin,
who in his role as policy director to the House Republican Conference
participated in the June 15 conversation, said: “It’s true that Majority
Leader McCarthy said that he thought candidate Trump was on the Kremlin’s
payroll. Speaker Ryan was concerned about that leaking.” McMullin ran for president last year as an independent and has been a
vocal critic of Trump.

When initially
asked to comment on the exchange, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Ryan, said:
“That never happened,” and Matt Sparks, a spokesman for McCarthy, said: “The
idea that McCarthy would assert this is absurd and false.”

After being told that The Post would cite a recording of the exchange,
Buck, speaking for the GOP House leadership, said: “This entire year-old
exchange was clearly an attempt at humor.

I guess Ryan's idea of being a "family" is akin to a Mafia family. The man is a liar and reprehensible. He is just as dishonest as Trump.

Perhaps Republicans and the conservative news media - save,
of, course Fox News and Breitbart - are finally waking up to the incompetent, poisonous
and possibly treasonous nature of the Trump/Pence regime. Indeed, on Facebook I saw one comment that
read as follows "Have you noticed lately that "The Hill" sounds
like the Daily Kos, Fox sounds like CNN, and the National Review sounds like
the New Republic? It's an amazing seismic shift towards reality, and we can
thank Orange Julius! Lock him up."
The conservative National Review seems to be joining the media outlets that are
belatedly putting the interests of the nation ahead of partisanship and
prostituting themselves to Donald Trump's base.
Here are highlights from the National Review's commentary on Trump's
disingenuous excuses for leaking top secret information to the Russians:

Let’s
begin with this proposition — there is a proper and defensible mechanism for
disclosing classified information, even to a geopolitical rival. If the
president determines that such disclosure advances the national interests of
the United States, and if the president solicits the advice and counsel of the
intelligence community and his national-security advisers to minimize the
possibility of revealing sources and methods, betraying the trust of allies, or
causing any other damage to national security, then it can even be prudent and
proper to disclose secret information. In other words, disclosure should be the
result of a deliberative process, not a momentary impulse.

Now, let’s contrast this appropriate process with the charges against President
Trump and, crucially, with his defense.

The charge is serious. The Washington Post and numerous other media outlets
reported that Trump impulsively shared highly classified information with
visiting Russian officials — information that “jeopardized a critical source of
intelligence on the Islamic State.” According the Post, the information “had
been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement
considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly
restricted even within the U.S. government.” The New York Times has identified
the partner in question as Israel.

Trump’s disclosure was allegedly dangerous
enough to trigger a scramble within the government to “contain the damage” by,
among other measures, “placing calls to the CIA and National Security Agency.”
Officials asked the Post not to publish the full details of the leak. Earlier
today, The Resurgent’s Erick Erickson wrote that he knows one of the sources
for the media’s stories and that the reality is even worse than the reports:

I am told that what the President did is actually far worse than what is being
reported. The President does not seem to realize or appreciate that his
bragging can undermine relationships with our allies and with human
intelligence sources. He also does not seem to appreciate that his loose lips
can get valuable assets in the field killed.

It doesn’t take a 3,000-word
explainer to describe how this allegation is alarming. But let’s note this —
Hillary Clinton lost the presidency in part because her own mishandling of
classified information meant that Russia could have had access to American secrets.
According to this report, Trump gave Russia dangerous secrets, impulsively,
perhaps as part of an effort to impress his guests.

And what is Trump’s defense? Yesterday one of the most respected members of his
administration, national-security adviser H. R. McMaster, issued a terse
statement claiming that the Washington Post story, “as reported,” was false.
After denying that “sources and methods” were compromised, he said, “I was in
the room. It didn’t happen.” The statement was carefully crafted to create the
impression of a blanket denial while still giving the administration some
wiggle room on the details. Then, this morning, Trump not only refused to deny
giving Russia classified information but, in two tweets . . . . undercut the
blanket denial.

McMaster is perhaps Trump’s best spokesperson, presenting Trump’s best case,
and it’s still unsatisfactory. There is no such thing as “no harm, no foul” in
this context. This is not the way we want presidents handling classified
information — especially during conversations with a hostile foreign power.
While I can imagine a context in which an experienced and knowledgeable
president could make a disclosure decision on the fly, the key here is “knowledgeable.”

Disclosing information without knowing the source is a throw of the dice. And
remember, this is the administration’s defense. The original allegations are
still hanging out there, and the reporters are standing by their stories.
Defenses and denials are not the same thing as refutations.
The allegations are too serious to be left to the realm of charges and
countercharges. The White House should share available records of the
conversation with the relevant congressional oversight committees, and those
committees should do their job, examine the evidence, and issue a public report
of their findings. The American people should be troubled by what we know. But
until we know all the facts, we don’t yet know how troubled we should be.

The corrupt and possible treasonous train wreck that is the Trump/Pence regime may be getting closer to having the proverbial wheels come off with Der Trumpenführer and his West Wing sycophants facing either criminal indictments and/or, in the case of Trump - and if we are lucky, Pence too - impeachment. Today a special prosecutor was named by deputy
attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein (Jeff Sessions because of his own Russia problems as recused himself). The appointee is Robert
S. Mueller III, a former F.B.I. director, who is lauded by both Democrats and Republicans alike. To be honest, my sense of deja vu just ticked up by a huge margin. Add to this another breaking story that Trump and his counsel were told BEFORE Trump appointed Michael Flynn as National Security Adviser, that Flynn was under FBI investigation. The New York Times reports on these developments. Here are excerpts:

The
Justice Department appointed Robert
S. Mueller III, a former F.B.I. director, as special counsel on
Wednesday to oversee the investigation into ties between President Trump’s
campaign and Russian officials, dramatically raising the legal and political
stakes in an affair that has threatened to engulf Mr. Trump’s 118-day-old
presidency.

The
decision, by the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, came after a
cascade of damaging developments for Mr. Trump in recent days, including his
abrupt dismissal of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, and the subsequent
disclosure that Mr. Trump asked Mr. Comey to drop the investigation
of his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn.

Mr.
Rosenstein, who wrote a memo that the White House initially cited as the
rationale for Mr. Comey’s dismissal, had been under escalating pressure from
Democrats, and even some Republicans, to appoint a special counsel.

By
appointing Mr. Mueller, a former federal prosecutor with an unblemished
reputation who once stood up to President George W. Bush on the legality of his
domestic wiretapping program, Mr. Rosenstein could alleviate questions about
the government’s capacity to investigate the swirl of questions surrounding the
Trump campaign and the Russians.

Mr.
Rosenstein said in a statement that he concluded that “it is in the public
interest for me to exercise my authorities and appoint a special counsel to
assume responsibility for this matter.”

Mr.
Rosenstein’s announcement came on a day when Republican lawmakers joined calls
for Mr. Comey to testify publicly, with some committee chairmen requesting he
appear before their panels and share more information about his encounters with
Mr. Trump. Lawmakers also asked the F.B.I. to turn over the memo that Mr. Comey
is said to have written that suggested the president asked him to quash the
investigation into Mr. Flynn.

As
a special counsel, Mr. Mueller can choose whether to consult with or inform the
Justice Department about his investigation as it goes forward. He is authorized
to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government
and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,”
according to Mr. Rosenstein’s order naming him to the post, as well as other
matters that “may arise directly from the investigation.” He is also empowered
to press criminal charges, and he can request additional resources subject to
the review of an assistant attorney general.

Mr.
Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions were notified only after Mr.
Rosenstein signed the order on Wednesday afternoon.

Mr.
Mueller’s appointment was hailed by Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill,
who view him as one of the most credible law enforcement officials in the
country.

Senator
Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican and a member of the Judiciary Committee, said
Mr. Mueller’s “record, character, and trustworthiness have been lauded for
decades by Republicans and Democrats alike.”

Senator
Ben Cardin, Democrat of Maryland and the ranking member of the Foreign
Relations Committee, said the “choice of Robert Mueller was solid and shows the
seriousness Mr. Rosenstein brought to this decision. Rather than ‘make this go
away’, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein has taken an important step toward
restoring the credibility of the D.O.J. and F.B.I. in this most serious
matter.”

The
appointment is certain to soothe nerves at the F.B.I., where agents have felt
under siege amid Mr. Comey’s firing and Mr. Trump’s repeated criticism of the
Russia investigation.

Let's hope that this appointment marks the beginning of the end of the Trump/Pence regime.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

With the news that Robert S. Mueller III, a former prosecutor who served as the FBI
director from 2001 to 2013, has been appointed as special prosecutor to investigate Trump campaign/Russia ties and seemingly Trump's efforts to thwart the FBI investigations of the possible collusion with Russian agents and/or Vladimir Putin, it should be glaringly obvious that the character of a candidate matters immensely, That includes a candidates' integrity when it comes to being true to past positions rather than masquerading as something new simply to attract votes. The following is a cross post of my May, 2017, column in VEER Magazine which makes the argument that Lt. Governor Ralph Northam is the best choice for the Democrat gubernatorial nomination and why people need to vote for Ralph Northam on June 13th (read the entire piece at VEER):

I
grew up in a family that was politically involved. For roughly 25 years I have been in the
political trenches, first as a Republican where I was a city committee member
for the Republican Party of Virginia Beach and a precinct captain, and then as
an independent with strong Democrat leanings after the Republican Party became
something akin to a reprehensible sectarian party.I even ran for Virginia Beach school board in
1994 only to be labeled "Christian Right" by the Virginia Beach
Education Association.I guess I've had
the last laugh on that fabricated story line.

Through
all my years of political involvement, one thing that I learned is that it is
critical to research candidates and make sure that they are what they claim to
be in campaign ads and to verify their claimed political positions on issues.
Many are not what they claim and will change their supposed stances if they
deem it politically expedient for their own benefit.Never mind that their past voting records and
positions are readily available for those willing to take a few minutes to do
some homework and/or check out campaign web pages.Too many people simply do not take the time.
Indeed, many of my "friends" who voted for Donald Trump and who have
since feigned shock over his anti-LGBT agenda as evidenced by rescission of
many Obama era protections and his new and falsely named "religious
freedom" executive order that allows tax-exempt anti-gay churches to
engage in political activity, never took the requisite time to see who/what they
were actually voting for.The "religious
freedom" executive order makes every citizen, including LGBT individuals,
indirectly underwrite churches that peddle hatred as they stock in trade.Now, these "friends" want me to
"forgive and forget" - something that will not happen.

While
we cannot undo the results of the 2016 presidential election, we do have an
opportunity to make sure that similar mistakes do not occur this November when
Virginia will elect new statewide officials, including the governor and
attorney general, and all of the members of the House of Delegates.With the Trump/Pence regime and a Republican
controlled Congress posing an ongoing threat to Virginia's economy and the
civil rights of all of its citizens - not just angry whites and or Christian
extremists - electing a Democrat to Virginia's governor's mansion in November
2017, is more important than ever.Indeed,
a Democrat in the governor's mansion may be one of the few firewalls available
to guard against the worse agendas coming out of the White House and the GOP
controlled Congress.

For
me, the man best suited for the position is Lt. Governor Ralph Northam, a man
who I have known since he launched his first campaign for the Virginia Senate
and who has held fast to his principles and ideals. Yet, seemingly
out of nowhere a possible wrench has been thrown into Virginia Democrats' plan
for an orderly, uncontested race to nominate Ralph Northam for the party's 2017
gubernatorial nomination. That wrench is one term Congressman Tom
Perriello, who only served from 2009 to 2011 before losing to a right wing tea
party candidate. Perriello has
challenged Lt. Governor Ralph Northam for the party nomination and is parading
himself around Virginia as the "progressive" candidate in the contest
and holding himself out as the best choice for forward looking Virginians. Based on my research to date, Perriello's
claims simply are not true.

Worse
yet, in my view, Perriello's entrance into the contest is serving only three
purposes: (i) to divide the party in Democrat Virginia - much as Bernie Sanders
did in the 2016 presidential race, (ii) to divert funds that would be better
spent on the general election against the eventual Republican opponent, and
(ii) fan the vanities of Perriello and his out of state endorsers such as
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who seemingly have not done their homework when it
comes to Perriello. What is most disturbing is that, if the Republicans
should win the governor's mansion in November, 2017, the consequences for many
Virginians will be horrific. LGBT rights, women's rights and minority
rights will have no firewall to stop the ugliest efforts of the currently
Republican controlled House of Delegates or to push back against the most egregious
Trump/Pence initiatives. Look no farther than North Carolina to see what
GOP control of the governor's mansion could mean. All so that Perriello,
Sanders and Warren can satisfy their egos?

I will be blunt. I
do not believe that Perriello can win against someone like the heavily funded GOP
gubernatorial front runner, Ed Gillespie and, if that happens, the outcome will
harm Virginians and Virginia's economy for years to come. Tom Perriello
claims that he has broad grassroots support, yet nearly 60% of Perriello's
campaign funds raised to date has come from sources outside of Virginia as have
all of his major endorsements.

In
sharp contrast, virtually all of Virginia's major domestic Democrats have
endorsed Lt. Governor Ralph Northam in the coming Democrat primary. Why?
Several reasons, in my view. First, because Northam is a steady candidate with
years of experience unlike Perriello, a two year flash in the pan, despite
Warren's efforts to fluff his resume. Second, Northam has been in the
trenches for years and has helped other Democrat candidates and worked with the
party's grassroots, if you will. My husband and I have been in those
trenches for years (I confess I've turned him into an activist), have been on
host committees and given money over and over again. Perriello has been nowhere
to be seen in Virginia or in Virginia politics. Third, Northam is right
on the issues - including LGBT rights which Perriello barely mentions in
passing on his campaign website - and brings the much needed perspective of a
physician into play.

Most
disturbing, however, is the fact that Perriello is not being honest with primary
voters about his actual record.While
arguably progressive on a few economic issues, the rest of his stances and
voting record are anything but progressive.Here's a sampling of what Slate.com
had to say earlier in the year about Perriello's less than truthful storyline
(emphasis mine):

But this
narrative isn’t quite right. Northam may have crafted a moderate image, but in
reality he is a fierce advocate for liberal causes who hews closely to the
Democratic platform. And Perriello,
for all his progressive bona fides, has a voting record that clashes with the
party’s current support for gun safety measures and, more importantly,
reproductive rights. During his
unsuccessful 2010 re-election campaign, Perriello boasted of his A rating from the National Rifle Association, which was a
result of his opposition to an assault weapons ban.

When
then–Attorney General Eric Holder proposed reinstating the ban, Perriello wrote
a letter to Obama asserting that “to even consider reinstating an ‘assault weapon’
ban is an affront to our Founding Fathers, who so clearly understood the
importance of the ordinary citizens' right to keep and bear arms.”

Perriello’s
anti-abortion record will be harder to explain. In 2009, Perriello voted for the odious
Stupak amendment, a dramatic extension of the infamous Hyde amendment. The Stupak amendment would’ve
prohibited insurance
companies that participate in the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges from covering
abortion.

Five Thirty
Eight blog
hasn't been much kinder to Perriello and has looked at Perriello's recent
gyrations to disavow - and distract voters from - his past positions:

This desire to
win over activists might account for a number of position shifts Perriello has
made of late. In January, he pilloried the NRA as “nut-job extremist organization” in the
post-Sandy Hook era, but during his time in Congress, he received campaign
funds and an “A” rating from the organization. In January, Virginia GOP
chairman John Whitbeck made a sneering prediction about Perriello’s stance on
offshore drilling, which he had supported while in Congress: “I look forward to
yet another heart-felt, tear filled Jimmy Swaggart-style Facebook post in which
Tom Perriello repents for his previous sins.

On offshore drilling, Perriello also voted against increasing
safety standards at offshore drilling rigs after the BP oil spill. On immigration, Perriello is equally
duplicitous and must be channeling Donald Trump as his model. America
Rising had this to say (emphasis mine):

During his short
gubernatorial campaign, Perriello has already flip-flopped on off-shore drilling, government funding of abortions, and Second Amendment rights. Now Perriello has added immigration to that
already voluminous list of flip-flops. According
to Politico, Perriello now supports immigration reform and the
DREAM Act, but when he ran for Congress Perriello was a supporter of
undocumented immigrants “self-deporting.”

Yes,
you read that correctly. Perriello said
immigrants should self-deport themselves.
He is equally disingenuous when it comes to the issue of gay
rights. In
his 2008 congressional campaign, Perriello said that marriage should be defined
between a man and a woman. In contrast
Lt. Governor Northam supported marriage
equality in his 2013 campaign. In addition,
he cast a tiebreaking vote in 2015 to advance legislation barring
discrimination in state hiring on the basis of sexual orientation or gender
identity. Compare Northam's campaign web page with its entire section on LGBT
rights and civil rights with Perriello's slim sentence on the entire issue of
civil rights and the difference is glaring.

Suffice it to say, of the two, Ralph Northam-
who as noted above I have known from the beginning of his state senate career -is the true progressive and
the true LGBT ally and the right person to move Virginia forward as Governor of
Virginia. I urge you to go to the polls on June 13, 2017
in the Democrat primary and vote for Ralph Northam. The 2016
presidential election should be a stark reminder of the consequences of staying
home and not voting. Ralph Northam will
not disappoint you.

Elections, including primaries matter and directly impact our lives. PLEASE get out and vote for Ralph Northam on June 13, 2017!

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

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